Wednesday Night Races: No. 7...Not again!

Alas, we thought this one would be different, but it was not to be. About 30 minutes after a very light air start the race committee decided the wind wasn't going to show up and called the race. There was a storm headed our way too, so that might have factored in.

Three canceled in a row? That's got to be a record.

Wednesday Night Races: No. 6

Last night the WNR was canceled again. (I hope this isn't a trend.) This time we were short on wind and there was a thunderstorm approaching.

We headed back and did some more boat work which was fun. Thanks to everyone for helping out. Special thanks to Tim Peek, for sticking around and doing boat work on his first night out on LinGin!

According to my records, that seals LinGin's 1st for the first WNR Series of 2009! (The WNRs are grouped into three series each year.) Very cool. Thanks to everyone for all your hard work. I've had a blast.

Division: Alberg 30 (8 boats) (top)

Pos	Sail	Boat	Skipper	1	2	3	4	Total Points	Pos
1	244	LinGin	Nurco, Virginia	[4]	1	1	1	3.00	1
2	484	Second-2-Nun	Bluntschli, Ralph	1	[4]	3	2	6.00	2
3	247	Argo	Williams, T.C.	[3]	3	2	3	8.00	3
4	288	L'Espirit	Palmer, Brian	[5/DNC]	2	5	4	11.00	4
5	287	Calliope	Bergquist, John	2	5	4	[6/DNC]	11.00	5
6	197	Laughing Gull	Adams, Jonathan	5/DNC	[6/DNC]	6/DNC	5	16.00	6
7T	152	Andante	pipkin, mark	5/DNC	[6/DNC]	6/DNC	6/DNC	17.00T	7T
7T	308	Asylum	Adelman, Allan	5/DNC	[6/DNC]	6/DNC	6/DNC	17.00T	7T

Notes

(1)	Scoring System is LowPoint - AYC Wed Penalties
(2)	Finishes in [brackets] denote throwouts

Wednesday Night Races: No. 5

Light wind led AYC to cancel WNR No. 5. Bummer, because it was a beautiful night and there was a bit of a breeze out in the Bay.

We headed back to the dock and fixed one of LinGin's portholes. Good times with good friends.

From LinGin Window Work

Click the link below the picture to see all the pictures.

Wednesday Night Races: No. 4

Another beautiful spring day here in Annapolis.  The Blue Angels flew for the graduating Mids today and we were on the water to watch the show.  Simply fabulous!

After that it was Wednesday Night Race #4.  5-10 kts out of the south made for a wonderful race.  Garrett was a victim of Commissioning Week traffic and was unable to make the race.  Glen was stuck in NYC for work.  That left Scott, David and me to take LinGin around the course.

We had a nice start; on the the line and in clear air.  We kept our speed up and headed left.  We had seen the previous classes start and there seemed to be more pressure and a lift to the left.

We made out well going left, although we were pinned down for a few minutes by some other boats that forced us to go a bit closer to the layline than we probably would have otherwise.  We found ourselves in a painful header coming back across, but managed to tack on the layline and get around mark A.  

LinGin was fast on the reach out to mark E and we opened up a bit of distance on Argo and L'Espirit.   Rounding E, we put the chute up with a fair amount of difficulty.  The after guy did not want to stay in place and I very luckily caught it was flying forward free of the turning block!

Once we settled down the spinnaker, Scott kept us going fast all the way into the red nun.  We stayed high on the reach to the green can to limit our exposure to big boat traffic and had a nice couple of tack through the harbor to take the gun.

A great time was had by all three of us.  We ate our sandwiches on the way home and marveled at how beautiful an Annapolis sunset can be.

Wednesday Night Races: No. 3

Rather than reiterate what's already been written, I recommend J's write-up of the 3rd WNR at the A30 Racing Blog.

I gave our side of the story in the comments. It was a really fun win right at the end.

Wednesday Night Races: No. 2

LinGin seems to have worked the kinks out a bit...at least we go to the line on time and went around the right set of marks. (It's the little things really...)

We had a good start in 5-10 kts., coming across the line in clear air. A beat out to the channel markers and up around Greenbury Point found us in first place. Argo wasn't too far behind--looking really good considering they were double handing last night.

We popped the chute and held it (the chute) and our lead all the way to the finish line. Scott was smiling ear-to-ear with all that spinnaker flying time! Everyone did a great job and David spent a good amount of time on the strings. I think he's got the playing foreguy just about down. Better watch out, Scott!

We were excited to see Brian Palmer sneak by Argo at the finish. Way to go L'Esprit!

Wednesday Night Races: No. 1

Had the first race of the season last last night.  A bit of rain and threatening clouds on the way out, but a nice steady breeze and clear skies the rest of the night.

Glen got caught in traffic, so we crossed the starting line 5 minutes after the gun went off.  :(

There was some confusion about the course among the fleet.  We crossed by ourselves and the RC told us "you guys have course A2".  Harry and J turned at A, doing course A1.  TC went out to D and turned, doing course A2.  We followed TC.  

We crossed the finish at 8:01PM, which is 14 minutes before the time limit, but no one from AYC was there scoring boats and we show up as DNF on the score sheet.  >:(  

I'll have to follow up on that.

The net is that I believe we came second, but we'll see if we can get that straightened out.

--Tim

Update:

Crew--

I think after a number of conversations and the novel action item of reading the sailing instructions in detail, I think LinGin took the wrong course.  As it turns out mark "A" is specified to be a "red cone", not a green cylinder.  We missed seeing the red cone and ended up doing the course that was designated for the big boats (A5).  Doh!  Next time we'll get it right.  

I've written AYC to get us scored in fourth rather than DNF.

--Tim

Wednesday Night Summary: Race No. 2

We did a great job on race number 2, but made one big mistake. After rounding the upwind mark in first with Towney hot on our heals, we were headed toward the Bay Bridge in a north wind. We had to tack to make the next mark and while the wind was strong (10-12 kts.), the seas were BIG and sloppy.

As we came around the mark, I came up and instructed Nick to put the jib at 6" off the spreader so that we would have power through the waves. At times it looked like we might lay the mark. I watched Towney and he bore away from the mark by perhaps 20 degrees! I thought, "man, that's WAY low...maybe he's having trouble pointing." I should know better by now!

About half way up the leg, we hit the worst of the waves and were almost completely stopped numerous times. Did I bear off and head over toward Towney? No. I stubbornly kept trying to point to that mark, and I paid dearly.

Towney tacked--way out there--and when we came to cross he had a solid 10 boat-length lead! Ugh. We did some great spinnaker work, but we could not overcome the distance I gave up.

Note to self (and crew): VMG is king and Albergs don't go upwind in waves well! Don't be afraid to signficantly bear off in chop and keep the speed up.

Now if we just had some polar plots that told us what our target speed should be in any given conditions. ;-)

--Tim